The Miss America contest got a little “strange” on Sunday night, as contestants from around the nation gathered in Atlantic City to compete for the crown.

The judges peppered the contestants in the question round with anti-Trump questions tantamount to the famous line, “So, Senator, when did you stop beating your wife?”

It's one thing to hand the crown over to a contestant who happens to give a politically charged answer to a politically loaded question. That is, after all, was said and done, exactly what the Miss America panel did by awarding the crown to Miss North Dakota, Cara Mund.

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Don't forget, this is the pageant that awards a crown to a female contestant who is meant to represent Americans at all manner of charitable and civic causes for the year. That is to say, any Trump voters out there, the pageant is falsely claiming to represent you.

The issue she addressed in the question round? President Trump's decision to pull out of the Paris climate accord.

“It’s a bad decision,” Mund said. “There is evidence that climate change is existing and we need to be at that table.”

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Climate change does exist; the matter is if the Paris climate Accord would address the underlying drivers and the financial cost. These are issues that can't be addressed in a thirty-second soundbite, which is why a beauty pageant is a bad forum to bring them up. It's an occasion for “phony brave” activists to preach to a completely sympathetic choir.

Donald Kravitz/Getty Images for Dick Clark Productions

The transparent attempt to politicize the pageant got the proverbial cherry on top with the AP's triumphalist headline after the crown was awarded: